After retrurn from Pak, Rajnath vows to root out terrorism

Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 12:15 PM

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who visited Pakistan amid a news black out and hostile terror elements taking to the streets with impunity, made a brief statement in the Rajya Sabha on Friday, resolving to root out Islamabad-sponsored terrorism from the country.

During his visit to Pakistan to attend the Home Ministers conference of SAARC countries, he had hit out at Pakistan for encouraging terrorists and cross-border terrorism in Islamabad.

As members had asked why he did not act on black-out of his speech in Islamabad, the minister said he was concentrating on his speech and not looked for whether it was being covered.

Since he was flown to the venue of the conference by a helicopter, he was not aware of hostile groups also. But at the hotel, he saw groups of 50s and 100s who did not seem to be friendly.

He pointed out that Pakistan had not ratified the protocol for mutual assistance among SAARC countries for a fight against terrorism.

Pakistan was only saying that it was going to ratify, but sitting over it.

Rajnath described terrorism as the greatest enemy of mankind.

The House as one condemned the Pak blackout of Rajnath speech and violation of protocol norms by Pakistan.

As for his Pakistani counterpart playing spoilsport over lunch, Rajnath said after the meeting took a break for lunch, the minister just went out and sat in his car. He also skipped the lunch, saying he did not go to Pakistan to have lunch.

The members who responded included the leader of the Oppsition, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Subramaniam Swamy, Maywati and Sharad Yadav.